


Just One More Thing

by extraordinary



Series: Unusual Arrangements [2]
Category: Free!
Genre: First Kisses, Friends With Benefits, M/M, With A Little Unexpected Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 09:55:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2063706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extraordinary/pseuds/extraordinary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But never, not even in his wildest dreams, had Haruka expected to find himself in this situation:  on a swing in an empty playground far from home, hands clutching the metal chains for support, with Nagisa's lips pressed softly to his own.</p><p>Written to celebrate Nagisa's birthday. Happy birthday, Nagisa!</p><p>(aka The One Where Nagisa Steals Haruka's First Kiss)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just One More Thing

**Author's Note:**

> This is the prequel to my other fanfic ( _Pre-Tournament Stress Relief Methods by Hazuki Nagisa_ ) which is set in a mainly Sharkbait 'verse, with a little NagiHaruRin action every now and then. This part, however, only focuses on Nagisa & Haruka during the night before Regionals --- a good year before Haruka & Rin get together. 
> 
> Basically, this story is about a pair of silly teenage boys trying to help each other relieve some tension. It's up to you to decide if there's anything more to it.

Less than ten seconds ago, Haruka had still felt rather secure in the knowledge that there weren't a whole lot of ways left for Hazuki Nagisa to genuinely shock him speechless. Until now he'd been operating under the impression that the blonde little whirlwind standing before him had long ago run out of things to do that would honestly catch him by surprise and leave him utterly unable to form any kind of response.

  
Having said that, Haruka was fully aware that he was not the best at reading his friend's moods (or his battle plans). But, generally speaking, there would always be some kind of sign that Nagisa was up to no good. In fact, usually there'd be _several_ signs: ranging from the very obvious, like an energetic torpedo of blond curls launching itself at one (or more) of his limbs, to slightly more subtle hints like the way Nagisa's eyes would sparkle a particular way whenever he was plotting some kind of troublesome new scheme.

  
Of course, Haruka never knew exactly what was coming. But at least he knew that _something_ was.

  
Over the years of their friendship, Haruka had become well accustomed to dealing with a mischievous Nagisa. Partly due to sheer necessity, but also due to the fact that he had undeniably grown rather fond of the little troublemaker while he hadn't been paying attention.

  
Not that he'd ever admit that to anyone. No, definitely not. It would only go to Nagisa's head.... and Makoto would give him that look. The one that never failed to predict group hugs and the sharing of feelings. Two things that Haruka would rather avoid if at all possible.

  
(Somehow Haruka suspected it had all been Rin's fault. It _must_ be; Rin was constantly getting under Haruka's skin, distracting Haruka from everything else that mattered by pulling Haruka into his orbit whenever he was nearby. And even when he wasn't, Haruka would still be unable to shake recurrent thoughts of Rin from his mind. Rin was always there, making himself at home in Haruka's thoughts and heart without so much as a by-your-leave. Nagisa must've simply slipped through the cracks that Rin had left behind in Haruka's mental defences.)

  
Either way, when Nagisa had admitted to being nervous about the upcoming relay Haruka had been shamefully surprised. It had been rather selfish of him to assume Nagisa wouldn't be affected, Haruka knew, and he wasn't proud of it. Perhaps _that_ is why he hadn't seen any of the usual warning signs. He'd been under the impression that no other surprises would be sprung on him that evening.

  
His conversation, if you could even call it that, with Makoto at their hotel room had been more than enough for Haruka for one night. That was why he was out here now, wasn't it? In hindsight, _how_ had he ever managed to convince himself that allowing Nagisa to come up with a way to mutually settle their nerves had been a good idea?

  
But never, not even in his wildest dreams, had Haruka expected to find himself in this situation:  on a swing in an empty playground far from home, hands clutching the metal chains for support, with Nagisa's lips pressed softly to his own.

  
He could only conclude that this hadn't been one of Nagisa's jokes.

  
That he wasn't in it for the shits and giggles this time.

  
That Nagisa was being _absolutely serious_ right now.

  
Haruka's breath caught in his throat. His eyesight had blurred the moment Nagisa leaned forward, eyes closed and a soft smile on his mouth, but he simply continued to stare straight ahead. Nagisa's face looked strange from this angle, completely out of focus and barely recognisable. Nagisa's lips were warm. The hands covering Haruka's own on the chains of the swing were warm, too. _They were breathing the same air._

  
How was he supposed to react to this? What did Nagisa expect him to do? Should he close his eyes? Should he pull away? Did he want to pull away...? He should probably pull away.

  
But Nagisa had already pushed himself back up before Haruka could even begin to gather his thoughts, shyly rocking back on his heels with a loud creak of the old metal chains he'd leaning his weight on.

  
They stared at each other for a long moment. Haruka licked his lips, wetting them almost automatically without fully understanding why. Nagisa's eyes followed the movement. Then he swallowed.

  
Haruka thought his own mouth suddenly felt dry as well.

  
"Nagi---"

  
"Did that help, Haru-chan?" Nagisa interrupted, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth.

  
Haruka blinked to clear the fog in his head. Suddenly the strange atmosphere surrounding them only seconds ago had lifted. His shoulders felt lighter. Or was that because he was feeling slightly light-headed?

  
"Help?" Haruka repeated, surprised to find his voice hadn't sounded different at all.

  
"With your nerves, silly!" Nagisa pouted, waving a hand through the air between them as if that would help explain what he'd meant. "Did it help at all?"

  
Huh?

  
_Oh._

  
Haruka took a while to think it over before answering.

  
Did he feel less nervous? Could he go back to the hotel room now and find sleep easily despite the memory of his awkwardly worded confession? And although he had eventually managed to push that embarrassing display in front of Makoto to the back of his mind, would he be able to keep thoughts of Rin at bay long enough to get some much needed rest?

  
"Not really." He concluded. Seeing the crestfallen look Nagisa threw his way, however, he quickly amended: "Briefly."

  
"Ehhh...? That's it?" Nagisa studied him for a moment, crossing his arms over his chest and placing an index finger against his lips in a dramatic thinking pose. "That's a little disappointing, Haru-chan! I was so sure that would work!"

  
Haruka shrugged. The swing rocked back and forth just a little as his weight shifted and his hold on the chains relaxed, knocking their knees together as a result.

  
"Never mind! I'll come up with something else!" Nagisa continued, unaffected by Haruka's silence. "You just leave it all up to me, all right?"

  
"No more kissing," Haruka warned him, suddenly acutely aware of how close Nagisa was still standing and the way their knees were touching. "What if somebody saw us?"

  
Haruka didn't particularly care about a bunch of strangers and their opinions, but Rei could have easily jumped to the wrong conclusion if he'd walked by at the time. Nagisa has been looking for him, hadn't he? In hindsight, it would also have been rather hard to explain themselves if anyone from the Samezuka team had stumbled upon them. How would Rin have reacted, if he'd found them like that?

  
How was he even supposed to explain anything when he wasn't sure he understood what had happened in the first place...?

  
"You're no fun, Haru-chan!" Nagisa pouted. "I _really_ thought it would work."

  
Haruka ignored him in favour of tilting his head back to look up at the night sky. The view was slightly obscured by the large metal beam holding up the swings, but the stars beyond were beautiful. He wondered if Rin---

  
"Let's see!" Nagisa interrupted his wandering thoughts. He was pointing  at something to Haruka's right. "What about that?"

  
"The slide?"

  
"Yeah!" Nagisa grinned at him excitedly. "Come on, Haru-chan, _let's go_ ~!"

  
"We're way too old for that, Nagisa."

  
"Don't be like that!" Nagisa insisted, grabbing Haruka's hands and pulling as hard as he could. "It'll be fun!"

  
Haruka raised an unimpressed eyebrow, trying not to smile at the way Nagisa was clearly struggling to get Haruka's larger and heavier body up and out of the seat of the swing without his cooperation. "How is that going to help us sleep?"

  
"You won't know unless you try it first!" Nagisa panted, giving up and walking around the swing to place both of his hands firmly on the small of Haruka's back. Then he _pushed_.

  
Haruka quickly stood up himself and turned around to smirk down at Nagisa who'd ended up sprawled across the seat of the swing. His laughter filled the playground, making the light of lone lantern behind them seem just a little brighter.

  
Haruka allowed the corner of his lips to quirk up. Just a little bit. Then he wordlessly made his way up to the steps of the big slide next to them, effortlessly stepping over the yellow fences cordoning off the swing area. Nagisa followed after him with an excited giggle, leaping over the little fences instead.

  
The light of the latern at the edge of the playground was a little weaker here, but they could easily make out the steps leading up to the top of the slide. Deeming it safe enough, Haruka bent down to remove his shoes.

  
Nagisa, of course, was way ahead of him. By the time Haruka had managed to untie the laces of just _one_ shoe, Nagisa had already toed off both of his and was sliding down the metal slide on his belly. As expected, Nagisa held his arms in front of him like he was preforming breaststroke as he went down.

  
"That was great!" Nagisa exclaimed happily from the bottom of the slide. "It's your turn, Haru-chan!"

  
Placing his shoes neatly at the bottom of the steps before climbing them, Haruka once again found himself wondering how Nagisa always managed to talk him into doing these kind of things: things he wouldn't even dream of doing with or in front of anyone else, but some way or another always ended up feeling natural and comfortable under Nagisa's bright gaze.

  
Nagisa just had a knack for making him feel at ease. Haruka never felt like he had to hide anything from him. He didn't have to pretend with Nagisa. Neither had Nagisa ever asked him to explain himself when he wasn't ready to. He always just seemed to know everything going on in Haruka's head without having to be told, and on those rare occasions that he hadn't been able to instinctively figure it out he'd wait patiently for Haruka to either open up about it or trusted Haruka work it out on his own.

  
Of course, sometimes he _would_ run out of patience. Those times he'd either literally or figuratively take Haruka by the hand and drag him out of the rut he'd gotten himself stuck in, like the way he had done when he'd found Haruka after his devastating loss to Rin at the Prefecturals and tugged him along to watch Makoto's individual race. Nagisa had perfectly understood what Haruka had _needed_ rather than what he'd wanted back then.

  
Nagisa deserved to know how irreplaceable he was to Haruka. He was glad he'd finally been able to voice those feelings to Nagisa earlier.

  
_Haru-chan is always smiling on the inside._

  
Well, perhaps Nagisa had already known. Maybe he hadn't needed Haruka to tell him after all.

  
Haruka smiled to himself. His thoughts drifted to the kiss they'd shared earlier. He found that he hadn't minded having his first kiss unexpectedly stolen by Nagisa very much. He wasn't much of a romantic, after all. Unlike Rin, who'd probably---

  
"Haru-chan?" Nagisa's voice broke through his thoughts, as if sensing where they'd wandered off to. "What are you waiting for? Hurry up, I want to go again!"

  
With a start, Haruka realised he'd been sitting on top of the slide and getting lost in his own head for too long to warrant bothering to come up with a remotely plausible excuse. Nagisa probably understood, anyway.

  
Pushing off, he allowed his weight to do the rest as he slid down the slide at a much faster pace than he'd expected. He nearly went barrelling right into Nagisa, who was laughing so hard at the foot of the slide that he looked like he was having trouble remaining upright.

  
"Wasn't that _fun_ , Haru-chan?" Nagisa asked, when he'd finally caught his breath.

  
Haruka shrugged indifferently. It hadn't been awful.

  
Nagisa quickly made his way around the slide and climbed up for another go, this time sliding in directly behind Haruka who was still sitting on the flat metal at the bottom of the slide. His bare feet were pressed into the small space between Haruka's hips and the raised plastic on both sides of the slide that was there to prevent children from falling off, knees digging into Haruka's shoulders while his shins rested comfortably on either side of Haruka's ribs.

  
Haruka resigned himself to the inevitable hug coming his way, sighing and leaning back into Nagisa's warm weight behind him. True to form, Nagisa wrapped his arms around Haruka's shoulders and unrepentantly placed his chin in the crook of Haruka's neck with a content sigh. "Feeling better yet?"

  
"You're heavy," Haruka complained, but he reached out to place a hand over Nagisa's clasped ones around his neck in spite of his words.  "Can this even hold both of us?"

  
"It'll be fine, Haru-chan!" Nagisa assured him, enthusiastically nuzzling his nose into the side of Haruka's neck. "Does that mean it worked this time?"

  
"No."

  
"Maybe you need to a go couple more times for it to work! Just once isn't enough!"

  
"No," Haruka repeated. "We should head back to the hotel. It's getting late."

  
"Awww," Nagisa complained, blowing raspberries into the side of Haruka's neck in protest. Haruka shuddered. "But we haven't found Rei-chan yet!"

  
"He's probably back at the hotel already."

  
The _worrying about where YOU are_ was a given and didn't need to be stated out loud, Haruka felt. He removed his hand from where it had been covering Nagisa's and made to get up from the slide, but Nagisa was clinging to him like a limpet.

  
"I've been thinking," Nagisa started, his voice uncharacteristically serious. "Doesn't this feel a little bit like it did back then? When we were all nervous about swimming that last relay with Rin-chan, I mean. If he were here he'd probably say something like: ' _You're gonna lose if you don't stay focused. Try to keep it together!_ ', wouldn't he?"

  
Haruka sighed. Didn't Nagisa know that bringing that up wasn't going to help them to feel better at all?

  
"Rin isn't going to be swimming with us this time, Nagisa."

  
"I know that!" He could feel Nagisa shake his head vehemently. "Rin-chan will be in the next lane..."

  
"It's not the same." Haruka sighed, growing weary of this line of conversation.

  
"But it'll do, right? That's what you're thinking, isn't it? Haru-chan?"

  
Haruka didn't reply.  

  
Not one to easily get discouraged by Haruka's silence, Nagisa continued: "It's not enough. I know that, Haru-chan, because I feel the same way. I want to swim a relay with Rin-chan again."

  
"That's impossible." Haruka reminded him (and himself), effortlessly shrugging a disappointed Nagisa off and getting up to retrieve his shoes. He didn't want to talk about these things.

  
It _had_ to be enough.

  
There was no other option. Haruka understood that very well. He'd thought Nagisa did, too.

  
Clearly sensing he'd hit a sore note, Nagisa didn't push any further. They quietly put their shoes back on and exited the playground.

  
Fortunately, by the time they'd made it out onto the streets and had started walking in the direction of the hotel the tension between them had already dissipated into a peaceful respite. Nagisa seemed to be thinking something over. Haruka didn't pry. He had his own thoughts to sort out, after all.

  
Before long, Nagisa broke their self-imposed silence with a long and detailed account of the way Rei had placed his belongings around the hotel room they were sharing. Haruka listened with one ear, nodding at what he hoped were the right intervals and glancing up at the street signs now and then to make sure they were still heading in the right direction.

  
"Nagisa," Haruka interrupted him halfway through an enthusiastic description of Rei's overly neat slipper placement. "You forgot to ask if it helped. Before."

  
"Huh?" Nagisa's steps faltered a little as he turned to look at Haruka.

  
"Talking about Rin. It helped a little."

  
Nagisa's smile could light up the entire street. Haruka quickly looked away.

  
"I'm sorry about upsetting you, Haru-chan." Nagisa told him quietly. "I'm very glad it helped, though!"

  
With that settled, they (well, mostly Nagisa...) easily fell back into their earlier topic of conversation. Nagisa's voice rang out excitedly over the streets as he talked Haruka's ear off all the way back to the hotel.

  
As they entered the lobby of the hotel, that strange tension from earlier seemed to creep back up on them. Nagisa fell silent as soon as the automatic sliding doors had closed behind them.

  
"We should check if Rei's here," Haruka offered, suddenly feeling awkward.

  
By some unspoken agreement they took the stairs rather than the elevator. Haruka had expected Nagisa to dash off in front of him like he always did, but instead Nagisa was sticking close to his side. When Haruka reached out to open the door to the hallway, Nagisa's hand hurriedly grabbed his wrist in mid-air.

  
"Nagisa?" Haruka took a startled step back on the landing. He frowned at Nagisa in confusion.

  
Nagisa shook his head, staring down at his shoes. Or possibly the floor.

  
"What's wrong?"

  
"You said it only helped a little." Nagisa started. His voice sounded nothing like it usually did. "That won't do, Haru-chan."

  
Haruka swallowed, tensing up just a little in spite of himself. "It's OK, Nagisa. There's nothing else you can do."

  
"It's _not_ OK!" Nagisa shouted abruptly, his words echoing loudly in the staircase. He was still holding Haruka's wrist tightly.

  
"Hey," Haruka tried, feeling increasingly useless as Nagisa's face scrunched up in pain and his eyes started tearing in front of him. "You can't solve everyone's problems, Nagisa. You tried very hard and I'm grateful, but there's nothing more you can do."

  
"But," Nagisa gasped, scrubbing at his eyes in frustration.  "Haru-chan, there's gotta be _something_!"

  
"I'll get some sleep eventually," Haruka gently reached his free hand out to wipe Nagisa's tears away for him. He shouldn't rub his eyes like that, they'd get all red and puffy... "It won't affect the relay. Stop worrying about everyone."

  
"I can't...!" Nagisa wailed, removing his hand from Haruka's wrist in order to wrap both of his arms around Haruka's waist instead. "I _can't_ do that!"

  
Unsure of how to proceed, Haruka's arms hung awkwardly at his side for a moment before he realised he should probably put them around Nagisa's shoulders instead. Nagisa continued to cry into his shirt as Haruka tentatively lifted one hand to comfortingly pat the top of Nagisa's curly blond head.

  
Haruka closed his eyes, waiting patiently for Nagisa to calm down. Soon the loud sobs turned into soft little sniffles. When his shaky breathing had finally returned to normal, Nagisa shyly pulled his head away from Haruka's t-shirt to stare apologetically at the wet splotches he'd left behind there.

  
"Feeling better now?" Haruka asked him reluctantly. "We should probably get out of the stairway."

  
"Yeah," Nagisa nodded up at him. His grip around Haruka's waist loosened a little, but he didn't move away. "A little."

  
"Only a little?" Haruka smirked, mimicking Nagisa's earlier words. He ran a hand through Nagisa's messy curls for good measure.

  
"Haru-chan," Nagisa suddenly asked. "Can I try one more thing?"

  
Haruka blinked down at him. He supposed it couldn't hurt to let Nagisa try whatever it was he'd come up with now. His other suggestions hadn't been awful, after all. It might help distract Nagisa from the reason for his earlier tears.

  
"All right."

  
Nagisa jerked a little in his arms, as if he hadn't expected Haruka to agree and wasn't entirely certain what to do now he had.

  
They regarded each other quietly for a long time. Haruka's eyes widened as he finally caught on to Nagisa's latest plan.

  
_Oh.  
_

  
Well.

  
He held still as Nagisa hesitantly got up on his tip-toes, bringing his arms up over Haruka's shoulders and pulling him down. Haruka's fingers twitched at his sides. Then they somehow found their way to the back of Nagisa's shirt, tangling themselves into the fabric without Haruka's permission. Nagisa's eyes were closed, his eyelashes surprisingly long...

  
They met each other halfway. Their noses bumping into each other almost painfully, before Nagisa tilted his head and fitted their mouths together more securely. Haruka wasn't sure what to do. He was feeling completely out of his depth, so he simply clutched Nagisa's shirt tightly in his hands as Nagisa slowly started moved his lips over Haruka's.

  
It felt _strange_ , but... not entirely unpleasant. Haruka wasn't sure what the point of this was, though. Weren't kisses supposed to be wetter?

  
As if reading Haruka's mind, Nagisa pulled back a little to smile encouragingly up at Haruka before licking his lips and moving back in. Haruka held his breath as their lips met for the third time that evening. Nagisa's moist lips slid smoothly across his own. It felt significantly better that way, for some reason.

  
Haruka quickly tried licking his own lips to see how that'd effect things. His tongue brushed the corner of Nagisa's lips by accident. Nagisa gasped in response, his mouth opening slightly against Haruka's in a way that felt _really good_ and suddenly they were both pulling back in shock.

  
They were _definitely_ on the right track here, Haruka thought absent-mindedly.

They stared at each other for a moment; their breathing oddly loud in the concrete space of the stairway. Then Haruka leaned back down and they were kissing again.

  
Nagisa hummed encouragingly as Haruka licked at Nagisa's mouth, running his tongue wetly over Nagisa's lips once before focusing on the little dip at the corner of Nagisa's mouth. Nagisa repaid the favour, breathing hotly into Haruka's half-open mouth before experimentally sucking at Haruka's bottom lip.

  
Haruka exhaled sharply in surprise, jerking back a little before Nagisa pulled him back down for more with a firm hand on the back of his neck.

  
Their kisses continued like that for a while. Just gentle nips here and there. Nagisa alternating between tugging playfully at Haruka's bottom lip and letting Haruka suck on his. Sometimes their tongues met by accident, pulling startled groans from both of them. One of Nagisa's hands was playing with the hair at Haruka's nape.

  
It felt nice, kissing Nagisa like this. Haruka's body felt strangely light. His palms were sweaty and he felt a little too hot, but in a good way.

  
Then suddenly the lights went out and they were left in the dark on the landing of the staircase.

  
"Haru-chan?"

  
"The light works with a sensor," Haruka's voice sounded surprisingly hoarse to his own ears. He coughed once before continuing. "It'll probably turn back on if we move."

  
"Oh, right." Nagisa muttered, sounding a little breathless. "D'you want to move? We probably should get out of here before someone comes in and falls down the stairs in shock."

  
Haruka shrugged, untangling his hands from Nagisa's shirt and waving one arm up in the air to trigger the sensor. The lights came back on with a low hum. Nagisa opened the door to the hallway for them this time, causing the lights in there to spring to life as well.

  
"Do you feel better now, Haru-chan?"

  
Haruka blinked. He hadn't been expecting the sudden question this time, so he took a while to answer.

  
"Yeah," He really did. He felt pleasantly warm, untroubled and completely relaxed... Kissing, it turned out, really did make a good distraction. "Do you?"

  
Nagisa nodded, blushing a little and avoiding Haruka's eyes. "I knew it'd work eventually!"

  
"You did." Haruka allowed.

  
"Good!" Nagisa chirped, grinning brightly up at him. "Sweet dreams, Haru-chan."

  
"Goodnight."

  
Before Haruka could move away, however, Nagisa was suddenly pushing him up against the wall and they were kissing again.

  
Except this time, the kid gloves were off.

  
Haruka's shocked exhale turned into a moan as Nagisa's tongue found its way into his mouth. Nagisa's hands were in his hair, pulling him down and pressing their chests together for balance as he as he teetered on his toes. Haruka's own hands came up to rest on Nagisa's hips, pulling him closer at the same time as he bent down a little to make things easier on Nagisa. Eventually they found a comfortable position that'd work for both of them.

  
They kissed until the lights in the hallway shut off with a click.

  
And then they kissed some more.

  
When Haruka could feel himself grow hard in his pants and slowly became aware of the fact that Nagisa seemed to be having the same problem, however, he broke away. That was too much.

  
Nagisa seemed to understand the problem. They quickly moved away from each other to lean against the wall, side by side. The lights above sprung into action again as Nagisa slid down the wall to sit on the carpeted floor.

  
Haruka watched him with undisguised fondness as he tried to catch his own breath and make himself presentable enough to rejoin Makoto in their shared room. Nagisa's lips were red and shiny, swollen from their kisses. Haruka doubted he looked much better himself.

  
He sat down next to Nagisa, gazing at the wall across from them in thoughtful silence. Nagisa huddled closer to him as soon as he could, linking his arm through Haruka's.

  
"We probably shouldn't do that again, huh?" Nagisa sighed, leaning his head on Haruka's shoulder. He sounded almost regretful.

  
Haruka didn't reply.

  
"It was fun, though! I really feel a lot better now, Haru-chan."

  
Haruka carefully lifted his arm out of Nagisa's grasp, then placed it over Nagisa's shoulders instead to allow him to burrow deeper into Haruka's side.

  
They sat there in comfortable silence for a long time, listening to each other's breathing and the soft humming of the lights above their heads. Haruka raised his free arm and waved it around to trigger the sensor that would turn them back on each time Nagisa and him were eventually left in darkness again. That is, until Haruka felt Nagisa begin to doze off against him. He looked down to find Nagisa's head lulling precariously and a light trail of drool running down his chin.

  
"Nagisa," Haruka smiled softly down at Nagisa's curly head, something warm and tender spreading slowly through his chest, before shaking him awake again. "You should go to bed. Rei's probably waiting for you."

  
Nagisa opened his eyes to blearily look around. It seemed to take him a while to remember where they were. "Ah! Sorry, Haru-chan! I didn't mean to drift off."

  
"It's fine," Haruka gingerly removed his arm from around Nagisa's shoulders. His joints felt stiff from sitting in the same position for so long. "I'm tired, too."

  
They both got up from the floor reluctantly, Nagisa yawning widely as he stretched his body before heading over to the correct door. "Good night, Haru-chan!"

  
"Nagisa," Haruka stopped him, just as Nagisa was reaching out for the door handle. "Thank you."

  
"You already said that once tonight, Haru-chan." Nagisa teased him. "Are you sure you're feeling all right?"

  
Haruka scoffed, making his own way to the door of the room Makoto was no doubt already snoring in. Well, he hoped Makoto was already asleep. At least one of them should be getting a good night's rest.

  
That, and Haruka wasn't sure if he'd be able to keep the blush off of his face if Makoto turned out to still be awake. He didn't doubt that one look at Haruka was all Makoto would need to be able to tell that something unexpected had happened on his run.

  
" _Good night_ , Nagisa."


End file.
